Matt McCormick has yet to reply to my third post on his essay in which I directly critiqued his Salem argument in response to his repeated requests that I do just that. But he did post a comment today which suggests to me a shift of tactic away from engaging my arguments and toward marginalizing […]
indoctrination
Has Stephen Law been sucked into an intellectual black hole? A Review of Law’s “Believing Bullshit”
Stephen Law. Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole. Prometheus, 2011, 271 pp. ISBN: 978-1-61614-411-1. In the vein of Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World (Ballantine, 1997) and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things (Holt, 2002), comes this new book by Stephen Law, senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop […]
Heathenism, naturalism, and other unstated prejudices
I am afraid I must pillory The Atheist Missionary for awhile longer folks. The reason is simple: we are getting close to the really important issue, the dogmatic philosophical presuppositions that wear the trousers in his otherwise free thinking mind. And it is of especial importance because these are not merely TAM’s philosophical presuppositions, but […]
Getting to the bedrock of naturalism
This is the final installment in my dressing down of The Atheist Missionary’s slapdash approach to the pedagogy of his children. We saw him dismiss the resurrection because New Testament historians are supposedly constrained by religion and institutional affiliation to affirm the things they do. (This bizarrely contentious series of asertions demosntrates that the discrimination against “religion” […]
Do Atheists discriminate?
Of course. More exactly, some do and some don’t. Just like some Christians discriminate and some don’t. (I chronicle both types of discrimination in You’re not as Crazy as I Think.) The real question for the present moment is this: how do atheists commonly discriminate? In the last couple weeks I’ve been focusing on some key […]
The Atheist Missionary continues to justify his prejudices
Why do I keep dumping on poor Atheist Missionary? Is it because I have a curious, morbid fascination in an intelligent denizen of western civilization defending his prejudices in a painfully ad hoc manner? In part, perhaps. But that’s not the whole story. The real lesson here is that we all attempt to justify our […]
Royal flushes, resurrections, and the things you teach your children
The Atheist Missionary’s criteria for what he would teach his children has continued to evolve (or devolve, I’m not sure yet). That’s a good thing because it is important for him to work out the principles that guide how he raises his progeny. The key issue concerned past event types that are unique and unrepeatable. […]
Would you teach your child that Great Grampy got a Royal Flush?
Occasionally a line of questioning / dialogue opens up in a thread which deserves to be put in the spotlight. This is one of those cases. It all began yesterday when The Atheist Missionary questioned me on what it is appropriate to teach a child. I’ve reproduced the nuts and bolts of that conversation below. […]
Entomophobia meets Reason: A teachable moment
Jerry Rivard responded to my criticism of the terrible advice Dawkins gave to his daughter by asking: “So what would your advice be to your daughter?” Good question. Here’s an eminently practical response. Just this morning we were driving along when my nine year old began “freaking out” in the back seat. “What is it?” I […]
The letter Dawkins wrote, and the letter Jerry Rivard would like to think Dawkins wrote
Jerry offered some interesting comments in response to my recent critique of Dawkins. They were well formulated and deserve to be pulled up on stage to perform a couple numbers with the band. “So come on up Jerry’s comments!” (Randal extends his hand and helps the nervous comments up on stage.) Jerry’s comments begin: “Sometimes, when […]
Indoctrination in Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project”
Friends, Romans, Triablogue Posse, I will be returning later today to some of the comments that are in the threads like overripe fruit laden on the vine. But for now I wanted to draw your attention to a journal article I wrote for Christian Scholar’s Review in 2009 which I just uploaded to the academic […]
